10 Years On
21 11 200510 years ago today, the Dayton Peace Accord was signed in order to put an end to the Bosnian War. During the past summer, I visited Mostar in Bosnia, and driving in from Croatia, it was quite shocking to see that the country is still suffering hugely from the ravages of war.
I’ve included just a selection of the photo’s that I took that day in Mostar. It’s quite shocking to see the amount of bullet and shell damage that is still evident throughout the entire town.
This image is of a Five Star hotel in the centre of the town which was bombed in or around Christmas time, evident by the fact that all these years later, there are still Christmas and New Years decorations hanging from the outside of the building.
This is a shelled out house on the Catholic side of town (see the cross on the wall)
Bullet holes and shell damage on the side wall of a house
The view through the front door of a house. Note the bullet holes in the wall, and the mortar hole blasted through the walls in the background. These houses were being lived in at the time this damage was carried out!
Needless to say those images are jaw dropping..were there many people living there when you visited?
Yeah, they’re kinda shocking alright! I didn’t actually get any pictures on the drive into Mostar, as things were just too shocking and emotional for me to take up the camera. Walking around taking these (and many more that I got) was, shall we say, an experience, and for a whole number of reasons too!
There was plenty of people living in places like this. In and around Mostar, most of the houses in which people were living were restored quite a lot of the way (though all still had huge bullet holes in the walls), but, out the country where there was less money available, people are literally living in shells of houses, with just enough repairs carried out to keep them sheltered